Diplomatic Meltdown
by Nazihra
Summary: Sunagakure is a backwards place. Buildings are made of sand, the Kazekage is poker-faced, hair-care is neglected and men wear purple make-up and kitty ears. How on earth is a classy girl like Ino supposed to fit in? KankIno ShikaTema DISCONTINUED
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings: **

**- This is an icky het story written by a yaoi fan. I know, your mind, it boggles. Anyway, the boy love is that way and it's called School Daze. Enjoy.**

**- If you are severely behind on the manga/anime, this story will contain some spoilers. Just to be safe, only read if you are reasonably up-to-date. **

"_Diplomacy is the art of letting someone have your way." – Daniele Vare_

* * *

"Good evening, Yamanaka Ino. I trust you had a good journey?"

Ino stared at the as-yet-nameless Sunagakure guard before her and resisted the incredibly strong urge to throttle him until he went blue.

"There is _sand_," she offered by way of reply, "In my _hair_."

She watched with some satisfaction as his Diplomatic Welcoming Expression wavered. He bit his lip, obviously unsure as to how one was supposed to reply to this kind of remark and lowered his saluting arm to his side.

The mouth of the guard beside him formed a silent syllable that threatened to become the words "I'd noticed" before he changed tack, which was good because it meant Ino didn't have to add fresh blood to the list of substances she was covered in.

"I'm sure there will be an excellent bathing facility at your accommodation," he said after a pause for thought, "If you'd follow me?"

Ino stood before the small gathering of guards that was her welcome committee, tugging at the knots in her bedraggled hair, and considered her options. On the one hand, Shikamaru had told her to wait for him at the gate so he could run her through some important business before she unpacked. On the other hand, there was _sand_ in her _hair_ and – she shifted uncomfortably on her toes – in other places.

She brushed off some of the sand still sticking to her skirt and smiled sweetly at the guard. "Of course. Lead the way."

Another – more junior - guard, who had so far been more preoccupied with examining the length of her skirt, now piped up, saluting awkwardly before he spoke. "Ah, but Yamanaka-san, Nara-sama said you were to wait for him here because…" he paused, blinked, tore his astonished gaze away from her navel again and continued fruitlessly, "um… because."

_Eh? Nara-sama? And why am I only Yamanaka-_san_, goddamnit? Am I not important enough?_

Ino pushed this annoyance to the side, however, with the expert ease of a high-class kunoichi and giggled at the guard, batting her eyelashes ever so slightly. "Oh, really. Call me Ino-chan," she said, simpering and tucking one dirty strand of hair behind her ear.

He blinked in confusion, nodding dutifully, and Ino sighed. He'd be melting into submission right now, she was sure, if only she wasn't so tired and sandy and… gritty in places she shouldn't be.

"I think," she said finally, tugging gently at the fishnet material covering her elbows in an attempt to shake out the sand grazing against her skin, "That, whatever Shikamaru plans to show me, he can show me tomorrow."

With that, she walked off at a slow - but decisive - pace so that one of the guards could easily catch up and show her what she was supposed to be striding slowly and decisively _towards_. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the guard who had greeted her hesitate and share a glance with his colleagues, before shrugging in a "Why not?" gesture and jogging after her.

"Left here… Ino-chan?" he said - his face poised between utter respect and incredulous surprise.

"Yamanaka-sama," she snapped curtly, already annoyed at herself and stormed – _gracefully_ – away, the guard trailing behind her.

They progressed like this for some time. The guard tried to yell directions at her from several yards away in the most diplomatic manner possible and Ino attempted to follow these directions while still giving the outward impression of ignoring him entirely. It was annoying but necessary – she had to earn respect somehow and flirting obviously didn't work – but it at least gave her an opportunity to survey what would be her home for the next few months.

So far, she had concluded that Sunagakure was into sand in a big way and that, therefore, her hair-care regime was about to get very tricky. Girls here had to have some way around it, she supposed, and she resolved to ask Temari. Well, assuming Temari _had_ a hair-care regime.

Ino considered the idea of a girl without a regime of any kind – even Tenten owned some products and Forehead-chan blow-dried regularly – before deciding it was impossible and against nature.

"Ino," she heard a familiar voice sigh behind her. She had never quite understood where Shikamaru had picked up the ability to sigh words but it was certainly starting to grate on her nerves.

She pirouetted neatly to face him and smirked when she saw Temari standing nearby, one hand resting on her cocked hip. _Ah, young love._

"Shikamaru," she said, "Temari-san." She took a moment to examine Temari's hair as the other woman nodded in response. She was definitely doing something to it. It was far too clean and free of sand to be natural in this environment.

At this point, the guard who had been directing her – or at least attempting to – jogged into earshot and saluted both Shikamaru and Temari. "Yamanaka-sama asked to be led to her accommodation, Nara-sama, so that she could… shower."

Shikamaru nodded slightly at the guard and dismissed him, leaving Ino to scowl at his retreating back. Honestly, he didn't have to make it sound so _frivolous_.

"So, you decided not to wait for me, then?" he said, the ghost of a wry smile flickering across his lips. His shoulders were slouched forward and his hands stuffed into the pockets of his uniform in a shocking display of informality, especially considering he was escorting the Kazekage's sister.

Ino didn't know how Temari could stand it.

"I figured nothing you needed to show me could be that urgent," she said, readjusting her hair clip and shaking out her ponytail in a futile attempt to dislodge the coating of sand that was caking it. Temari raised her eyebrow at the action.

"Did you put in hair product this morning?" the other woman said, eyebrow still arching up towards her hairline.

Ino tilted her head. What kind of question was that?

"Of _course_ she did. This is _Ino_," Shikamaru said, laughing and rubbing at his temples like he always did when he believed she was being utterly ridiculous. Ino scowled at him and opened her mouth to speak.

"It's generally a bad idea," Temari said before she could tell her team mate how much of an ass he was being, "The sand and bugs stick to it."

What Ino meant to do, on hearing this veritable pearl of desert wisdom, was laugh it off, say something charming and smile at Temari – so as to build a diplomatic rapport with the Kazekage's sister and Shikamaru's, for want of a better word, sugar mamma.

What she actually did was shriek, say something unintelligible but vaguely akin to "bugs are disgusting" and claw at her hair like she was trying to remove it – which served only to amuse Temari and wake up a large number of civilians in nearby houses.

"I'm beginning to think I should have asked Chouji," Shikamaru drawled, as Ino raked her fingers through her tangled hair and squawked inelegantly.

A good minute or so later, when Ino was satisfied that any bugs in her hair had fallen out or – as Shikamaru put it – "jumped to their deaths' to escape the screaming", she asked to be taken to her accommodation so she could shower. She also wanted to curl up under her bed in the foetal position and pretend she was anywhere but here - but didn't think this was something Shikamaru and Temari would appreciate knowing and so kept those plans to herself.

"But if I don't show you how things work tonight, I'll have to wake up early and do it tomorrow morning," Shikamaru whined, tilting his head back and sagging at the knees.

"Look Shika, I am going to strip," Ino said, enunciating the words carefully and ignoring Temari's sudden bout of inexplicable smirking, "And then I am going to douse myself in cold water. Whether I do that in my nice, sheltered accommodation or out on the streets with a bloody hose-pipe is _entirely_ up to you."

"Personally, I vote for the latter option."

Ino froze. Temari smirked wider.

Oh, God.

"The Kazekage's brother is behind me, isn't he?" Ino asked, trying to think of a way to rip Temari's smirk off her face without starting a war.

Shikamaru's head tilted forwards and he straightened up at the knees. "Evening, Kankuro-san. Evening, Kazekage-sama."

Oh, _God_.

"If Shikamaru doesn't want to show you around, I could always do it," Kankuro said, seemingly unperturbed by the recent threat of public nudity. Ino whirled round, hands held up in front of her, and smiled awkwardly at him.

"Aha, no. That's not at all necessary, Kankuro-san. Shikamaru's just being lazy and you're probably _very_ busy and-"

"He can have the day off," the Kazekage said, voice almost entirely monotonous.

If Kankuro had seemed unfazed by Ino's outburst, the Kazekage seemed like he'd slept through it. Ino wondered what was so thoroughly different about Shukaku that it could leave you stone cold and poker-faced when, from what she had shakily concluded, having the Nine-Tails sealed inside him had only made Naruto _more_… expressive.

Because she refused to believe Naruto was born as hyperactive as that. It just wasn't natural.

Ino put aside wrestling with this interesting question for another day and tried desperately to make sure she didn't have to spend tomorrow morning with a man whose first encounter of her had begun with her threatening to take her clothes off in a public place.

But, before she could think of anything, Temari butt in, voice annoyingly cheerful. "That's a good idea. That way Kankuro can have the _whole day_ to show you the ropes."

_I hate you. I hate you and your stupid smirk._

"Oh, Temari-san, I'm sure I won't need a whole day to get a hang of the system. It'll only take Shikamaru a little while to run me through it. Won't it, Shika?"

_And I hate your stupid, sandy-coloured, non-sandy hair._

"But of course, Ino-san. After he's explained the way things work around here, maybe Kankuro could show you around the city. You'll be spending quite a few months here, after all."

_And I hate your stupid eyebrows and the way you raise them at me._

"That's a kind offer, Temari-san, but I wouldn't want to take up all of Kankuro's precious free time like that. He must have many things he'd rather be doing."

_And I hate your voice. You have a really stupid, stupid voice._

"Actually, I don't."

_And I hate your goddamn, stupid brother and his lack of pressing social engagements._

"Well, that appears to be settled, then," Shikamaru said, stretching one arm out in front of him and trying to pretend his team mate hadn't just been doomed to a day of absolute, torturous mortification at the hands of a man wearing more make-up than she was.

_More make-up than she was_. It was so unnatural she could cry.

The Kazekage nodded, seeming pleased – or as close as he could get to pleased – at the way the situation had worked out. He left with his brother and sister trailing behind, Temari turning round as she left to blow Shikamaru a furtive kiss.

He mimed catching it with one hand and Ino narrowly avoided projectile vomiting all over her surroundings. Disgusting.

"We'll be off, then," Kankuro called over his shoulder, an amused and annoying Temari-like smirk on his painted face, "Unless you really do plan to shower out here, Ino-san, in which case I'd like to watch."

Temari had the decency to whack him over the head but Ino still found herself dying a little on the inside. She was going to spend the next three months working under – and by God, that phrase was suddenly far too suggestive for her – a man who wanted to see her naked.

Normally, she would have considered this a great thing. Normally, however, men did not wear make-up.

Purple make-up.

And cat ears.

"I hate my life."

* * *

Akihiko may have been one the most junior guards but, in his opinion, he was still reasonably experienced. He was thirty-one and figured he'd already seen most of the weird things he was going to see in his life.

He now realised that assumption had been quite wrong.

"Sh-she wore a miniskirt," he said finally, "In the desert."

The captain of the guard took another drag of his cigarette and nodded sagely. "With a midriff-baring top to boot. She's going to be awful raw tomorrow."

He seemed to be unreasonably calm about the whole thing.

A more junior guard snickered behind his hand and, on the insistence of his colleagues, spat out whatever was bothering him. "She seemed to like you quite a lot, Sir. You know," he cocked his hip to the side, batting his eyelashes in a rough imitation of what the kunoichi had done, "Call me, Ino-cha~n!"

The captain, who was still unbelievably Zen on the matter, ignored this blatant display of insubordination and took another long drag.

"Possibly she was, for want of a better word, flirting in that manner," he said, as Akihiko flushed and the guards around him tried to contain their laughter, "Because she believed you were interested in her and therefore a prime target."

Almost half the guards burst out laughing at this nugget of information and the other half appeared to be slowly haemorrhaging with the effort of holding it in.

The captain continued. "After all, you were looking at her skirt quite a lot."

With that, they lost another fifth of the guards to giggle-fits and Akihiko's flush deepened to an attractive maroon shade. "N-n-no, well, I wasn't- that is to say- I don't- she's a very young, much too young- I was just- skirt, very short- surprised. I was just surprised… at how short her skirt was."

The sound of laughter echoed all around him and Akihiko sighed. It was going to be a long day.

The captain took yet another puff and stamped out his cigarette, his mouth barely twitching in the slightest hint of an amused smile.

_The bastard._

* * *

**So, I haven't updated School Daze in ages and my answer to this issue is to... start something new and shiny! Yay procrastination! Still, school holidays have started now, so I'll be in a much better position to update my stories. **

**Anyway, please review and tell me what you think. I love hearing from people; it really makes my day. :)**


	2. Chapter 2

Ino stared down at her skin and tried not to cry.

She had never considered herself a vain person, which would probably surprise some of the people she knew back home, but, in her opinion, there was nothing vain about looking good or, for that matter, realising you looked good. She just appreciated her own assets and the way they gave her an edge over the competition, especially where her lack of bloodline or freakish mutation would have otherwise left her a less-than-adequate ninja. Sure, she had her clan technique, which was _very_ helpful in battle – provided she could convince her enemy to stand perfectly still while she activated it – but being pretty gave her a fall back plan. Looking good made her feel... useful.

Right now, she did not look good. She did not look good at all.

Streaks of blotchy red maligned her skin, criss-crossing up and down her arms and legs and all over her midriff until she resembled a sore, shell-less lobster. They itched until she wanted to scratch and burned horribly when she gave in to the temptation. The part of her that had received medical training recited some worrying statistic about desert rot and the rest of her wailed something about looking like a leper.

Overall, she could safely conclude that today's horoscope was telling her _not to go outside_. Which is why, when she heard what she could only assume was Kankuro rapping at her front door, she pulled the covers up over her head and prayed to Kami that he would just go away.

Still, if Kami cared one jot about her social reputation, she wouldn't be scarlet right now so Ino was hardly surprised when Kankuro found the spare key and the door slammed open with a loud bang.

"Hey, Ino-san. You dead?"

"Go _away_," Ino growled as diplomatically as she could. She could hear heavy footsteps thundering up the stairs and clutched at her duvet tighter, curling up into a tiny ball of woe and disfiguring rashes.

"Ino-san, I'm supposed to show you around today, remember?" she heard Kankuro say from the other side of her bedroom door. He knocked on it tentatively, "Can I come in? I mean, you're not naked or anything, are you?"

_Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you? Pervert._

"I'm not going outside today," she told him, voice somewhat muffled by the duvet coiled around her and the horrendous pressure of her abject despair, "I'm going to stay inside and cry and eat hideous quantities of something terribly fattening and my diet will be ruined and no one will ever love me and it will all be the fault of this awful abyss of sandy awfulness and the sarcastic perverts that dwell within it and somehow manage to not get icky bugs in their hair."

There was a pause in which she imagined Kankuro was reflecting on her damning and final verdict with deepest consideration.

"Did you inhale something weird just now or is this a chick thing?" he asked.

In retrospect, Ino realised she had most likely overestimated him.

Kankuro seemed to mutter something to himself and nudged open the door. Ino, despite the fact that she was wearing a set of nightclothes that covered more of her body than her usual day attire and a heavy outer layer of duvet, shrieked and chucked a pillow at him, on the basis that she could have been naked so she might as well be outraged anyway.

Kankuro caught the pillow and dropped it on the floor. Ino scowled. A well-mannered and more reasonable man, like Sasuke-kun, would have had the decency to get hit in the face, even if he could have dodged it.

Ino then tried to consider throwing a pillow at Sasuke's face and revised her opinion. It was still annoying, though.

"Your arms look a bit red," Kankuro said, as if he hadn't just walked in on a potentially naked Konohan diplomat. Honestly, it was like the people here had no concept of courtesy.

"I know," she spat, resurrecting the duvet shield and burrowing back into the bed linen, "And that is why I have decided to stay indoors and wallow in the healing balm of my own tears until I am presentable again."

Kankuro seemed to consider her words again and Ino was about to inform him that she hadn't yet sniffed anything toxic but could be persuaded in that direction at this point in time, when she felt a light tug on her duvet cocoon.

She poked her head out and glared at Kankuro, whose hand was incriminatingly poised above the bed. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

He managed to look guilty for at least a second, which Ino considered a massive improvement on his part, before his eyes widened and the expression shifted into something both horrified and thoughtful. Ino wasn't sure if that combination of emotions was even possible but he seemed to pull it off quite well and she pegged it down to a Suna Thing.

When a large, rough hand reached out to cup the side of her face, however, she did not consider it a Suna Thing. She considered it a Creepy Thing and reacted accordingly.

The resulting scream could be heard from at least a block away.

"W-w-what was that for?" Kankuro stuttered once the blinding pain had apparently died down to a mere excruciating burning. He was clutching at a very personal part of his anatomy and wheezing into the carpet.

"I was about to ask you the same thing!" Ino screeched, pulling the duvet up from her shoulders to just under her chin in case he got any sick enjoyment from seeing her bare clavicles, "Do all Suna guys go around breaking into houses and groping half-naked girls in their own bedrooms on their day off or is it just you?"

"I wasn't groping you!"

"Y-yes, you were! You were stroking my face in a highly suggestive manner!"

Kankuro glared at her out of the corner of his eye, rolled his eyes and sat up again, wincing. "If touching a girl's face counted as groping her, I'd get a lot more action than I do now," he muttered, more to himself than to Ino, before turning to squint at her with that weird half-astonished, half-disgusted expression again. "I was just trying to examine the red crap on your face," he grumbled, making sweeping gestures over his own face with the hand that wasn't currently nursing his privates.

Ino was about to reprimand him for fondling himself in front of a young lady when his words caught up with her.

"Red crap? On my face?"

_Please let him mean my lipstick is smudged._

"Yeah, you know, like the stuff on your arms. It's on your face too."

_Oh God, I'm not wearing lipstick._

"You didn't travel through the desert wearing that skimpy two-piece thing, did you? I mean, Temari said you were a bit dim but..."

_Oh God, I don't even _own_ lipstick._

"Don't call me stupid, stupid," Ino replied, without thinking. She felt like she was in a trance.

_And there's a boy here – not a very attractive one but a boy anyway – and he can see me in this state with streaks on my face and oh god oh god oh god oh-_

Five seconds later, Kankuro's face was pressed against the carpet again, this time with his hands clamped over his ears.

"How are you that loud?" he wailed, eyes scrunched up tight in pain, "You're such a little girl; how the hell are you that loud?"

Ino ignored him in her rush to get to the bathroom mirror, almost tripping over his sprawled body. Sure enough, staring back at her was not the young and attractive visage she was used to seeing but a mess of red blotches and lines and streaks, interspersed with tear tracks and topped off with a mound of tangled, messy blonde hair which, despite her best efforts the night before, was still sandy. She screamed again and Kankuro, having become several degrees more intimate with the carpet, managed, with both eyes closed, to pick up one of the pillows Ino had scattered in her haste and chuck it in her general direction. "For the love of all that is good, _stop making that noise_."

"I look horrible!" Ino pawed at her skin in the hopes that the friction of her misery would manage to cleanse the ugly away. Kankuro snorted unhelpfully.

"I knew that already but I don't see why you have to go breaking my ears over it."

Ino decided not to dignify that with a response but, after a second of consideration, decided that storming out of the bathroom and dignifying it with a hard kick to the nads was probably okay.

Another surprisingly high-pitched cry shattered the relative silence of this part of inner Suna. Ino could almost hear the formal complaints being filed about breaches of peace and anti-social noise levels.

"There is no way in hell I'm having kids after this," Kankuro sobbed, flopping over onto his other side, presumably in case he said something offensive again and Ino tried to inflict more punishment on his bruised wedding vegetables.

"Good," she snapped, poking him in the ribs with one foot, "Now go away so I can weep pitifully for my lost beauty."

She thought she heard Kankuro mutter something about not being able to lose what you never had in the first place but decided she didn't really have the energy to sterilise him any further. After a while, he stood up, albeit a little tenderly, and she began to head back to the relative security of her duvet.

"I have to show you around," he insisted, latching onto her elbow with that same curiously rough hand.

"And I have to not look like a terminal patient in public," she groused, "So we appear to have a conflict of interests."

He scratched at the back of his head, or at least where the back of his head would be if he wasn't wearing a hood with cat ears on it. Ino swore to stab herself in the face with a kunai if she ever considered that anything but the very epitome of all things unnatural.

"Come on, I've got to show you around or Gaara will go all pouty-hmph on me for a week."

Ino tried to imagine the Kazekage, child maniac and scourge of even the bravest men, going "all pouty-hmph" on anyone. Her brain came up with a blank and asserted that this was impossible and Kankuro must be lying or crazy. She relayed this verdict to him firsthand and he snorted at her.

"He's changed a lot since you met him," he said, seeming annoyed at having to explain that his little brother was no longer a psychopath.

"The last time I saw him, he almost permanently crippled Rock Lee and then tried to kill him while he was sleeping," Ino said, folding her arms in front of her and cocking one hip in a defiant stance. Okay, so she hadn't actually _seen_ Gaara try to kill Lee in his sleep but Shikamaru had assured her that he had and she only ever distrusted her team mate when he was quite obviously lying, like the time he said that she didn't look good in her new dress.

That was frankly ridiculous. After all, she looked good in everything.

"Yeah? And he's changed a lot since then, jaan?" Kankuro growled back, taking a rather worrying step towards her and curling his fingers into fists at his sides. The tough-guy verbal tic didn't escape Ino's notice either and she took a tentative step backwards, raising her hands out in front of her in a subconscious attempt to ward off Angry Kitty Puppet Man.

"Alright, okay. He's changed a lot. Forgive me if I don't quite believe it."

This didn't seem to help much and Kankuro's rather angry face was getting uncomfortably close to hers. "Why shouldn't you believe it?"

Ino glared at him and, serious facial disfigurement or no serious facial disfigurement, decided that she wasn't taking this kind of lip from some dressed as a domestic animal.

"Because he tried to kill a good proportion of my friends?" she asked, punctuating her accusations with vicious jabs to his chest, "Because he repeatedly announced that he was a total monster? Because even _you_ were scared of him?"

Kankuro's face fell and he turned away from her, anger seemingly dissipated. Ino felt like she'd not only struck a nerve but also brought all her friends round to take turns kicking it while it was down and then thrown rocks at it until it curled up into a ball and cried.

"I'm not scared of him," Kankuro said at last, "Because he's different now. He isn't like that anymore."

Ino didn't quite know if that was supposed to reassure her, Kankuro or both of them. In the end, it hardly mattered.

She stood in silence for a bit, pondering over what she should say to comfort him or – maybe possibly even? – apologise for snapping, though of course she expected him to apologise too for being such an ass in the first place and, when you thought about it, maybe she shouldn't apologise at all because he had started it and-

All coherent thought threw itself out the window and ran for the hills when Kankuro started stripping.

"It's okay!" she squeaked at once, grabbing the jumper he was struggling out of and trying to jam it back on his head, "I forgive you already! Whatever weird Suna forgiveness tradition you are trying to enact is both _entirely_ unnecessary and a little creepy so _please_ put your clothes _back on_."

Kankuro quirked one eyebrow at her from within the folds of his baggy jumper and slapped her hands away. "What on earth are you talking about?" he asked, once he'd managed to wriggle free of the cumbersome material, "I thought you could wear this to cover up your hideous flesh wounds while I take you to a medic-nin, since," he snorted, "I'm guessing you don't own any normal clothes."

Ino's mind was about to rebel at the idea of actually wearing the kitty ears – despite the fact that she was sure she could make even that look fantastic – when it caught on the word "hideous" and screeched to a halt.

"Wait, what? You did _not_ just call me-"

She paused while her brain did a little catch-up work.

"Why would I need to go to a medic-nin? I feel absolutely-"

Another couple of seconds passed and Kankuro filled it by straightening out his shirt.

"What do you mean _normal clothes_?"

"Are you quite done?" he asked her.

Ino glared and opened her mouth to scold him some more, before she realised she had nothing more to say and snapped it shut again. Kankuro seemed to take this as a "yes" and extended his three middle fingers before her face.

"No, I did not call you hideous. I called the marks on your face hideous," he said, curling the first finger into his palm, "You need to go to a medic-nin so they can clean up your face before it gets even more hideous," he retracted another finger and paused to reflect on his words for a moment, "And that time I did call you hideous, yes. By normal clothes," the final finger joined its fellows, "I mean clothes that are capable of covering more of you than a tea towel and I'm willing to bet that, if I opened that wardrobe over there, I wouldn't see a single item fitting that description."

Ino stared at him in shock and grabbed a handful of the kitty hood. "You wear this on a day to day basis and you seriously just gave me a lecture on normal clothes?"

"There is nothing wrong with my jumper," he groused, snatching it away from her and clutching it like a favourite pet, "At least it covers me up."

Ino rolled her eyes and gestured at his chest, now clad only in a comparatively skin-tight shirt. "Swamps you more like. Maybe you'd get more "action" if you didn't hide away your only less-than-repulsive feature like some modest little girl." Images of Hinata and her unbelievable rack cloaked under a sea of thick jacket came to mind, reminding Ino of a frustrating afternoon spent trying to introduce the shy kunoichi to the concept of cleavage.

When she resurfaced from her musings on Hinata's stifled assets, Ino realised that Kankuro was staring at her with a lascivious expression and a pair of eyebrows waggling more than possible or decent.

"You look like one of those nasty old men that hang around playgrounds when you do that," she spat at him, uncomfortable with the realisation that he was still the man that had witnessed and encouraged a bout of potential public striptease only the day before.

"Did you call my chest sexy?" he asked, ignoring her.

Ino raised an eyebrow at him. "If "sexy" is the Suna term for "less-than-repulsive and about to be smacked black and blue for being perverted" then yes, yes I did call your chest "sexy". Now quit being creepy about it."

"Because I think you just called my chest sexy," Kankuro informed her, grin spreading across his face like a contagious disease.

"You remember how I kicked you in the balls earlier? Because I can do that again," Ino growled, "And harder."

That shut him up rather effectively, though he still smirked at her and wriggled his eyebrows again as he handed over his stupid jumper. Ino ripped it from his hands in the hope it would tear somewhere and then rammed it quickly over her head so that she didn't have to look at his purple, perverted face.

Once she had found the hole for her head in the ocean of heavy fabric that was the kitty hood, Ino poked her head through and pulled the jumper down over her stomach and then her hips until it ended at about the middle of her thigh. The ends of the sleeves slipped from where they were bunched up on her wrists and hid most of her hands from sight. One side of the hood fell off her shoulder all the way down to mid-bicep.

"I think I need this in a smaller size," she said, as the hood sagged forward and a set of fake cat ears obscured her vision, "A much smaller size."

* * *

The smaller size did not materialise and, with a resigned sigh, a quick change and some more internal and also perhaps external complaining about how terrible her situation was, Ino clutched the ridiculous garment tighter around her body and allowed Kankuro to lead her outside. They began to make their way through the streets of Suna and towards what Ino assumed must be some kind of medical building when she noticed, to her great distress, that people were already staring at her.

It was official. She looked like a freak, everyone thought she looked like a freak, she would forever be known as the chick that looked like a freak her first day here and would be shunned by all the attractive Suna boys.

She glanced at Kankuro.

If there were any attractive Suna boys, that is.

Despite the awful awfulness of her life in general at this point in time - did that person just giggle at her? - Ino was determined to bear it with the same dignity, maturity and grace - that person definitely just giggled at her - that she applied to everything in life.

"I hate you," she told Kankuro in a very mature fashion indeed, "And I hope you die."

He snorted over his shoulder at her and nodded his head in recognition at another ninja across the street, who was waving frantically and giving them two emphatic thumbs up for an unexplained reason. "That's odd," he said, in a sarcastic tone of voice that proved he was not planning to be quite as mature as her, "Because I thought you were a Konohan diplomat. I must have been mistaken, though, because that would mean," he continued, shooting a questioning look at his supposed friend who was making some gestures Ino didn't understand but assumed were Not Appropriate, "That you were working for my little brother. I don't think you can be, though, because I do not believe that anyone not," he paused to raise an eyebrow at his friend across the road, who was now grinning and waving over some more friends, "Cosmically stupid would ever think wishing death on the elder brother of the powerful man they work for is a good idea."

"Well, then I hope you fall down a hole and sustain several serious but non-fatal injuries which you will eventually make a full recovery from," Ino snapped before hesitating mid-stride to observe what was now a small gathering of young men. At any other time she would have been flirtatious purely on the principle that they were male and about her age and could prove to be attractive or rich on further inspection but right now she really didn't like the idea of people looking at her. She pulled the kitty hood further down over her face. "They're laughing at me," she groaned, "Because I look like an awful, freaky thing that crawled through a wood chipper and then into an oven."

"I don't think they are," Kankuro said, in a voice that implied he hadn't quite worked out what they were doing but that he was prepared to object to it anyway, "I think… I think they're probably just dicking around. Ignore them. Come on."

Ino let out a wordless wail of distress that was muffled by the fabric obscuring most of her face but followed him towards the hospital anyway.

"Hey, hey Kankuro! Aren't you going to introduce us to your friend?" Ino heard one of the boys call from across the crowded street.

She saw him wave his hand at them to dismiss the idea. "Not right now," he called back, totally ignoring the concept of respectable, public behaviour and how shouting across busy, populated roads was not included in the typical definition of it, "She needs to go see the medics."

There was a pause and then the boys, as one, burst into a fit of laughing and whooping. Ino felt like she could break down and cry then and there but held it together because she was a strong and dignified woman and also because if she did more people would stare at her.

"God, Kank, what on earth did you two get up to?" a different boy yelled, voice trembling with suppressed amusement.

"What are you talking about?" Kankuro shouted back, looking over his shoulder at them with a frown on his face. He also stopped walking, which Ino disliked because it meant it would take that much longer for them to get into the hospital and out of the public eye. "I didn't do any-" He was cut off with a startled yelp when Ino rushed forward and pushed him on with both hands because she needed to not be outside now, thank you very much, and stopping for a chat did not help to achieve that end.

The boys seemed to find this several different flavours of amusing. "Aw," one of them cooed in a very non-cooing sort of voice, "She's _shy_."

Kankuro looked like he was about to turn back and start a conversation for the sole purpose of informing his compatriots how not-shy and un-self-conscious Ino was - possibly mentioning, for reference, incidents involving hoses and streets and loud talk about the use of them for bathing - so she shoved hard on his shoulder blades again to spur him on. "If you don't get me to that hospital right now," she hissed, when he showed signs of objecting to her direction, "I will very personally and violently give you good reason to want to go there."

He quirked an eyebrow at her in what seemed to her like a challenge so she added, "Do they have a Genital Trauma Unit at this place?"

Kankuro gulped and quickened his pace a little, shouting back to his friends that he would talk to them later and, oh, her name is Ino and, no, I just met her yesterday night and what, can't hear you, okay, see you later, bye.

After that disturbing episode, Ino felt hyper-aware of all the people inspecting her, which appeared to be everyone with working eyes. People glanced, people stared, people tittered behind their hands or openly and people _patted Kankuro on the back_ for, what Ino could only assume, looked to them like the Kazekage's wonderful big brother helping out the poor Konohan leper.

"Have these people never seen someone with red, flaky skin before?" she hissed at Kankuro, as if accusing him of somehow making the eyesore that was her complexion look worse with his very presence.

"I don't know," he said, "People are acting pretty weird. I mean, you don't see someone walking around with desert sores," Ino suppressed a whine, she had _sores_, "Everyday but it's not _that_ rare."

She tried to apply the section of her mind not wailing about looking ugly and being ogled at to this odd problem and came up with a weak but believable enough answer that would explain the situation in a way that didn't include her being a laughing stock. "Maybe it's because I'm from Konoha?" she started, brightening up a little now that there was a possibility she wouldn't be forever known as Freaky Skin Girl, "Like they associate Konoha with something funny or good for some reason and I'm from Konoha so I… remind them… of that?"

She couldn't see Kankuro roll his eyes but she didn't need to. She could _feel_ it. He and his sister had this special way of doing it that generated a small force field and made the pit of your stomach roll too. "Yes," he said, sarcasm thick enough to choke him and Ino half-hoped it would, "Because they can instantly see you're from Konoha despite the fact that you're not wearing a headband due to the magical "will of fire" vibes that you exude everywhere. And, of course, old and powerful enemies that we are now on shaky, friendly terms with but that could still make our life miserable in all kinds of ways if we piss them off enough are considered the highest form of comedy here. You mention all those years of bloodshed and deception and long-standing mistrust and people start pissing themselves with laughter, I swear."

Ino scowled. "No need to be such an ass about it," she harrumphed, attempting to put her hands on her hips and finding said hips difficult to find in the sea of fabric she was draped in, "It's not like it's my fault you're afraid of us because we kicked your asses."

Kankuro paused, froze and then wheeled round suddenly to face her. The look on his face reminded Ino of when he had shouted at her for stating facts - mere, undeniable facts - about his little brother like it was the highest form of slander. "No," he spat and now the hood was off you could really see the way all his muscles tensed when he got mad, "It isn't your fault because you _didn't_. I just- you never "_kicked our asses_" and all of you, you don't _frighten us_, you make us _angry_. You make us fucking _hate you _for what your bastard ancestors did to us and that's not a good way to think, jaan. Gaara would know of all people the way that kind of hatred rips you up and that's why he wants you… you _Konohans_ here, so that you can prove that you're not all worthless assholes," Kankuro paused long enough to gesture wildly at her and then went on with his rather tactless rant, "I mean, you of all people- they said you were _good_ at manipulation," Ino opened her mouth to correct him because manipulation was an ugly word but he went on before she could speak, "You should know why you're bloody here, what they want you to do. I just- I can't believe any kunoichi, any ninja could be so… so _stupid_." The tirade paused once more and Kankuro seemed to notice, at last, that he'd said some things you weren't supposed to say in the course of this whole diplomacy business and slammed on some buttons that had been left to fester for a very long time. He trailed off and turned to walk away again, towards the hospital where he was taking a "worthless asshole" to be treated.

Ino knew - she had realised - that prodding the fire when Kankuro was already blazing was not a good idea but- but there was being sensible and there was pride in where you came from and sometimes they refused to walk hand in hand. If he was allowed to get mad at her for implying that this weak, sandy hellhole might be afraid of a glorious place like Konoha, as it should be, then surely… He'd spat the word Konohan like a curse, that was what it came down to.

She opened her mouth to let it all out, all the insults that had been bubbling on her tongue about this awful place, all the figures and facts about how much better, stronger, superior Konoha was to this little backwards slice of nowhere and then the words he'd said hit at last. Her brain might not work as fast as Shikamaru's or Sakura's but it always got there in the end, if she gave it long enough.

Gaara understood that hatred destroyed people because he'd lived it, Kankuro had said that. In her mind, the Gaara-Naruto link that never went away no matter how different they were and how much she wished it would - demon fox, demon raccoon, in the language of fear and superstition it was all the same - piped up again. Naruto understood hatred too because he'd also lived it. They had that much in common.

Gramgram, her grandmother, Ino realised in a flash of recollection, had hated Naruto, loathed him with a passion and intensity that scared her as a child. She hated him too at the time, of course, because he was a little boy and little boys that weren't Sasuke were _ew _but only with the vague, stubborn petulance of a little girl. Not like Gramgram. Gramgram had glared at Naruto when all he did was walk past, Gramgram had forbidden Ino to ever talk to him ever - like she'd want to anyway, he wasn't Sasuke at all - and Gramgram had, without ever saying it out loud, taught Ino to do as she did.

Ino had tried to glare and glower and hiss words at him behind cupped hands - she hadn't known what to say so she'd just muttered "poohead", the worst insult she knew, over and over again under her breath so she looked like the grown-ups - but it had never felt right. She had never managed the spite behind the words and the glares and the actions. When she'd met Naruto - the real Naruto, loud, cheerful, obnoxious and funny - the half-hearted act had dropped anyway but it struck her now that all she could remember of Gramgram was the hatred.

Rage had torn her grandmother up and pieced her back together as a spiteful monster that would spew vitriol at a small boy, as a person that Ino had never really liked, let alone loved. That was what hatred did, it destroyed you and it drove the people around you away. The people of Suna hated Konoha - _fucking hate you bastard ancestors worthless assholes_ - and that… that was bad because then Konoha would hate back because that was what happened and then Konoha would be like Gramgram, a whole city of mindless spite and hurt feelings masquerading as righteousness.

Ino understood in that moment why Tsunade thought it was so important that she made a favourable impression in Suna - "charm them," she'd said, "your file says you excel in that regard" and Ino had nodded like a good little soldier and not asked why - and also why Shikamaru had gone on and on about it in that letter he'd sent her before she set off - "try not to be yourself, at least until they get used to it," he'd written and she'd scrunched the letter up and thrown it away to spite him. She understood why everyone was so tetchy about Suna because, oh, everyone knew they still hated Konoha and, until now, she hadn't thought that mattered. So what if some little place in the desert wanted to pull faces and throw stones? What could it matter? How could they hurt _us_?

With hate, a little voice in the back of her head supplied. Because hate hurts, no matter what side of the equation you're on. Naruto and Gaara and Gramgram are a testament to that.

That was why they had picked her. Oh, they'd said it was for all the mundane reasons - Shikamaru was her team mate, Chouji was busy, she hadn't had a mission for a while - but she knew Konoha was never that lax about its relationship with the Country of Wind, everything was calculated, another chess move in the great game of diplomatic relations.

They had picked her because she was good at charming people and, more importantly, because she didn't look dangerous. Seeing the deaths of your countrymen in the wizened, battle-scarred face of the retired ninja that had been there killing them or in the youthful, ignorant faces of his sons was easy. Looking for it in his daughters - as much as it pained her to admit it - took more effort. Finding it in a pretty, blonde and - it was only an act, she reminded herself, a tactical manoeuvre - ditzy young thing in a skimpy outfit who was currently flirting with the nearest group of available young men was near impossible. She was useful because she wasn't intimidating, because if the people around her were laughing or smiling or rolling their eyes, they weren't hating.

By the time she had finished ruminating her way through this small epiphany, Ino realised that Kankuro was a good two thirds of the way down the main street. She cursed her slow brain - it didn't help that it reached the answer if it reached the damn answer half an hour after she needed it - and jogged after him, trying not to think of this a blow to her Konohan - _bastard ancestors worthless asshole _- pride.

When she caught up, she tried to grabbed at the sleeve of his baggy jumper, realised he wasn't wearing it, shook her hand free of aforementioned, cumbersome sleeve and wrapped it round his wrist. "Help me," she said, before her brain had enough time to regret it.

He peered over one shoulder and raised an eyebrow at her, though the action didn't carry the same "I'm laughing at you" vibe it usually did. _No_, Ino thought, _you can't hate me already. I can't fuck this up when I've just realised how important it is that I don't. That's not _fair.

"That's what I'm doing," he said tersely and made to start walking again, shaking his wrist free of her loose grip.

"No," she said, catching his arm again to his visible annoyance, "Not with the sores thing," part of her protested loudly, "I mean, yes, help me with that too, please, but- but I need you to help me not be…"

_A worthless asshole._

She stumbled over her words and her pride for a bit because knowing this was important didn't make it any less uncomfortable until Kankuro seemed to reach the end of his patience. "A terminal patient in public, yes, I know," he said, this time wrenching his arm free with more force than at all necessary and holding it away from him like it was tainted.

_No, you can't hate me you can't hate me can't hate me can't hate. _

"I need you to help me not be a worthless asshole!"

Okay, so maybe she'd said that a mite too loud in the middle of a crowded street but the fact that heads were turning didn't matter because Kankuro's head was turning too.

"What?" he breathed.

Ino found the humiliation of asking for his help was a lot easier now she'd called herself a worthless asshole at high volume in public - and speaking of which, why did she always make a fool of herself in public and never in secluded and private areas? "I'm not good at this stuff," she said, before the pride kicked in again and added, "I mean, I am when I'm hot," the eyebrow rose once more and, yes, this time he was definitely laughing at her and she didn't mind at all, "But right now I'm going to need help to win people, important people, over. Your help, if you'll give it to me."

She considered fluttering her eyelashes but batted the thought away. She was wearing fake cat ears and covered in what her guide had described as - oh, yes - _desert sores_ so any pouting or coy fidgeting would probably have the opposite of the intended effect.

It turned out she didn't need to because Kankuro smiled anyway - still with that "laughing at your stupidity" vibe but she was quickly getting used to that - shrugged and said, "You needn't have asked. That's my job."

Ino boggled. "That's your- that's your- what?"

"I've just been set the task of making sure you don't make a total arse of yourself while you're here," he explained, as if this was one of many missions he had been given along the same vein, "Between you and me," he added, in a fake conspiring tone, "Your team mate doesn't have much faith in your ability to charm people."

"Shikamaru?" Her fists clenched at her sides when she worked it out. "_Shikamaru_. I am going to _kill_ him!" Kankuro started laughing, loud and clear so that more heads turned, but Ino didn't pay him or them much attention. "I'm going to kill him, resurrect him, force him to clear up the mess his death made and then kill him _again_."

She calmed down as Kankuro stood there and chuckled at her some more, taking the opportunity to think about the best course of action, something - she had to admit - she very rarely had cause to do. She needed this weird man with cat ears and make-up and - her gaze was sucked downwards because this kind of thing was more her area and leopard, spots, no changing - _fantastic_ abs to like her. She needed as many people as possible in Suna to like her because for once what people thought of her and her country mattered beyond a mission or getting a date.

"So your job is to sell me, huh?" she asked, keeping her tone casual like the last five minutes of tension hadn't happened. Kankuro stopped wheezing out the last dregs of his amusement long enough to nod. "Well, I know quite a lot about that kind of thing from years of selling myself," she started.

"Missions not pay enough to fund your spending habits?" he asked, snorting, and then started walking towards the hospital again when he realised they were both standing still in the middle of the pavement.

Ino caught up with a short burst of sprinting so that she could hit him. "Don't be crude, you know what I mean. But anyway, I thought I should give you some advice."

Kankuro looked down at her - damn him for being so tall - like he didn't quite believe this fresh dose of madness. "I thought I was supposed to be the one helping you?"

"You are. I'm just helping you help me."

Kankuro snorted again. "Of course."

The hospital building loomed up in front of them - pale white and clinical in its sandy glory - so Ino put a hand on his bicep to make him stop. "If you want to make people believe something," she said, staring up into his eyes in a way she hoped would convey seriousness and maturity and all that crap, "The best place to start is believing it yourself."

It was, she thought, a pretty good line, probably because she had stolen it off Asuma-sensei, who was better at coming up with stuff like that than her. It seemed to have the desired effect on Kankuro anyway because he breathed out through his nose, short and sharp - not quite a sigh, not quite a snort, all typical Kankuro - and half-smirked half-smiled at her.

"I don't hate you," he said, "I know better than that. Maybe, once we get to know each other better, I could even like you." Ino frowned. That didn't sound too good - _I could _even_ like you_ - but before she had time to say anything, Kankuro clapped a hand on her shoulder and pushed her in the direction of the door. "Now let's go get your hideous face fixed!"

* * *

The appointment lasted ten minutes and, according to Kankuro, would have lasted ten seconds if "that poor genin they set you loose on" had had her way.

"I don't know what you're even talking about," Ino groused, hitching up her makeshift jumper-dress to shove the little jar of ointment she had been prescribed into her medical pouch, "I didn't do anything to her."

Kankuro raised an eyebrow.

"What? It's not my fault she was so nervous she couldn't keep her hands from shaking. I, for one, was never that incompetent," Ino sniffed, flicking the hem back down over her thighs and strutting off in a random direction.

There was a short silence.

"Do you have any idea where you're going?" Kankuro called after her.

"No."

"Do you even _care_ where you're going?"

"No," Ino admitted, "Now are you coming or not?"

Kankuro smiled, shook his head and caught up with her in about two paces, hooking an arm around her waist so he could guide her round the corner. "You remember that whole 'showing you how the system works' activity? As in, the whole point of today?"

"I vaguely recall," Ino said airily. She was feeling a lot less uncomfortable about her so-called "desert sores" now that there was something she could do about them and also because the medic-nin had assured her they would be gone in a matter of days, though Ino suspected the girl would have said anything at that point to make her leave. Either way, the people staring at her - and laughing at her and making thoroughly shocked faces at her like _bloody stupid goldfish freaks_ - were, by extension, less of a problem too.

_You just wait until I'm hot again_, she mentally hissed at the next ninja to raise a dubious eyebrow at her_._

"Well, that's what we'll be doing now," Kankuro said.

"What?" Ino asked, boggled, and then mentally re-winded the conversation a few seconds. "Oh, right. Showing me how the system works. Got it."

He gave her a look. "Natural blonde, huh?"

Ino gave him a look back. And then her middle finger. For good measure.

"I get this weird feeling explaining the system to you is going to take a while," Kankuro said, shifting his hand to the small of her back to push her across a busy road.

"No one made you do this," Ino hissed, "You _volunteered_. And stop shoving me; I can walk on my own."

Kankuro drew his hand back with a mumbled sorry but then ended up pulling her down the street by her wrist anyway. "Why do you walk so slow?" he asked by way of explanation when she snarled wordlessly at him and tried to pull her hand away.

"Because I'm covered in sores and I have shorter legs than you! Now let me go!"

Kankuro sighed in frustration, stopped so abruptly Ino almost crashed into him and then, finally, let go of her wrist.

"_Thank y-_" she spat but, before she could finish her rather petulant display of faux gratitude, Kankuro turned round, wrapped his arm round her waist again, hooked the other one under her arse - _under her arse_ - and lifted her over his left shoulder like a bloody rag doll.

"Problem solved," he muttered and walked on down the street.

Ino found herself less pleased. "Put me down!" she screeched, scrabbling for a handhold on his back while, at the same time, trying to tug down the hem of the jumper-dress with her other hand. She gave his chest a good kick for good measure. "Put me down _right now_."

"We're almost there and it's obviously going to take me ages to explain how the _door_ at this place works, let alone the system," Kankuro said, before adding, "Besides, this way is much faster."

"I thought you said you didn't have anything better to do today," Ino hissed, still pulling fruitlessly at the bottom of the kitty hood and bunching her fingers in the fabric of his t-shirt.

"Doesn't mean I want to spend it with you."

Ino kicked him again but if Kankuro even felt it with his bloody stupid, armour-plated abs, it didn't show. Instead he merely bounced her on his shoulder a bit so she could settle in a more comfortable position.

At least, Ino assumed that was his intention. All it actually did was make the hood fall from her head and flop down to hang over her shoulder, meaning everyone in the vicinity could see her face sores, as well as somehow managing to make her only layer of decent outer clothing bunch up even higher so that everyone in the other direction could probably see her knickers. Oh, and Kankuro's hand was on her thigh.

_The Kazekage's older brother's hand was on her thigh. _

"I'm pretty sure this constitutes as assault," Ino said, giving up on her skirt and, with it, her dignity so she could devote both her hands to the task of holding on for dear life, "That's going to look _so great_, isn't it?" She let go of his shirt with one hand for a moment to make a sweeping gesture, since laughing this off was so much better than processing the fact that Kankuro's hand was on her thigh, "Beautiful, young Konohan diplomat arrives in Suna and is immediately kidnapped by Kazekage's unstable brother. A nation mourns and seeks vengeance for this tragic loss."

Kankuro harrumphed and shifted his hand a little higher on her thigh _- a little higher on her goddamn thigh_. "I'm sure they'll get over it," he said, "We're pretty much there now anyway. I told you this would be faster."

Ino grabbed his shoulder with both hands and immediately straightened up so she could return to ground level because his hand and also her thigh and they were touching and that was terrible. However, she soon realised she hadn't quite thought this cunning plan through because Kankuro was then forced to put another hand on her person to stop her toppling over backwards.

And this one was very much higher on her thigh. In fact, Ino reckoned, it had departed from the thigh area altogether.

To his credit, Kankuro seemed to notice the slight issue with where his hands were placed now. "I, er," he said eloquently.

"Put. Me. _Down_."

Kankuro complied and then tried to ignore the extreme awkwardness of the situation by focusing on the task before them. "This is the building!" he said with no small amount of forced enthusiasm, his eyes staring straight ahead. He gestured to it robotically with one hand. The same hand that had been positioned on a very intimate area moments before, Ino noticed.

She brushed herself off, having already recovered. It wasn't like she'd never been grabbed there before - she was gorgeous, after all - and at least this time it seemed to have been accidental. "It's made of sand," she said, deadpan, "What an original concept."

Kankuro laughed weakly and made to put a hand on her shoulder to guide her inside before thinking better of it, leaving his hand hanging uselessly in the air. Ino left him like that for a bit out of spite before eventually having mercy on him and making her own way inside.

"Come on then," she said cheerfully, holding open the door so he could step inside, "Now that you're done molesting me, I'd quite like to know how things work around here."

The receptionist nearly choked on the dango stick she probably wasn't supposed to be eating at her desk and Ino dragged Kankuro off before he could object.

Served him right after all.

* * *

Temari placed the bottle and both cups down on the table as close to gently as her inherent aggressiveness left her capable of achieving. This was a ritual developed and practiced over years of stress and responsibility and, in Kankuro's case, girls. Pretty girls. Often of the giggly and sycophantic variety. They never lasted long.

Temari liked to refer to the process as "shared commiseration" because it made them sound like the kind of family that was functional and did things together. Kankuro, in his infinite sarcasm, called it "an opportunity for mutual schadenfreude".

"It could be sisterly intuition," she said, filling her own glass first on the basis that she probably needed and deserved it more after the day she'd had, "Or perhaps the fact that you're sobbing into the table but you seem somewhat upset."

"I hate my life," Kankuro groaned, apparently too exhausted by crushing despair to even raise his head at the sound of her voice. Temari noted his lack of jumper with interest and took a sip of liquor. The rumours appeared to be true.

Kankuro didn't seem too eager to elaborate so she sighed and, like any good sister, leaned forward to give him a gentle whack on the head with the bottom of the bottle.

"Ow!"

"Shut up. And tell me what's wrong with you, otherwise I will send you straight to bed with no alcohol."

She watched as Kankuro seemed to deliberate on this threat before he opted, as she had expected, for the option most likely to get him stone drunk. "It's the girl. The Konoha girl."

Temari resisted the temptation to roll her eyes on the basis that one should be patient with one's moronic brothers, no matter how determined they seemed to be to have appallingly bad taste in women. "You have met her _twice_, Kank. She was obnoxious and screechy the first time and I can bet she was just as bad the second time."

"She's going to destroy me," Kankuro continued, appearing not to have heard her reasoned argument at all, "She's going to force me to homicide or suicide or something worse."

Temari sighed with a small measure of disappointment and a large helping of violent disgust. "Oh well," she said with very little sympathy, "I can't say I'm all that surprised." She settled back in her chair for what would, if previous experiences of this kind were any indication, be a long hour of extremely one-sided commiseration that she was fully prepared, as a good sister, to pretend to hear. Numerous board meetings had taught her how to fake attention with utmost skill. "Commiserate away," she added on an afterthought.

Kankuro didn't need to be told twice. "It's like she was put together from the fragments of my nightmares and sent forth from hell to punish me for everything I've done wrong in my life." He grabbed the bottle of sake and, quite impressively considering he had yet to raise his head, opened it with one hand and poured himself a glass. This practiced and slightly worrying performance was ruined when he overfilled the glass, causing sake to splash all over the table his face was currently glued to, but Temari was proud and faintly concerned all the same.

"Your being able to do that really fails to convince me you don't have a drinking problem, Kankuro," she grumbled, one eyebrow arched up to her hairline and already ignoring whatever babble he was most likely spouting about Ino's hair or legs or, if she was more honest about her brother's interests, chest.

"I mean, she's honestly the most ridiculous person to ever exist. And that's coming from me."

"Poor baby," Temari said, rapping her fingernails on the table and considering the more interesting problem of what to eat for dinner.

"It's like she's perceptive and yet a complete and utter bimbo at the same time, except also mentally unstable. And loud. Really loud."

"If she doesn't appreciate you, she doesn't deserve you," Temari recited like a dutiful sister, having remembered that there were some leftovers in the fridge that needed eating.

"She's almost certainly going to start a war by accident," Kankuro wailed into the table.

"Plenty more fish in the sea."

"She'll probably start one on purpose too, just to ruin my life."

"It's her loss."

"I mean, I can't believe I ever thought she was attractive."

"You'll find someone one day, I'm sure."

Temari noticed Kankuro raise his head from the table out of the corner of her eye and congratulated herself on a job well done. Who said you needed to listen to people to solve their problems? Clearly someone who wasn't as awesome of a sister as her.

"What the- what are you- are you even listening to a word I'm saying?"

Ah. Temari avoided his eye and took another sip of hard liquor. Kankuro followed her lead and then overtook her by downing his drink in one.

"You were doing that thing again, weren't you? Where you pretend to listen to me? You're really not as good at it as you think you are, just so you know."

Temari scowled at the implication that she was ever anything less than amazing at anything ever and shrugged. "Excuse me if I'm a little jaded. It's not like you falling in love and-or bed with some absolute tramp is that rare an event."

There was a long silence while Kankuro reached for the bottle again, refilled his glass, emptied it and then repeated the process. Multiple times. When Temari looked over to tell him that he was drinking too much, again, she was confronted by the sourest face she had ever seen on any human being. And years of living with Gaara and working with bloody Suna officials made that quite an achievement.

"You look like a lemon in human form," she told him.

"And you haven't been listening to a word I've said. Not a word. I don't love Ino, that is precisely the point. There is the point and the fact that I don't like Ino is that thing. They are one and the same. They are in perfect unity and sameness."

"Very zen," she said, raising a disapproving eyebrow, "But not at all sober. Something tells me you've had enough of this." She reached for the bottle of liquor and found a kunai blocking her way.

"Did you just throw a kunai at the table?"

"I'm still using that," Kankuro said simply, "It is still in use. By me."

"Uh-huh," she said, before what Kankuro had said, or slurred rather, caught up with her, "Wait, so you _don't_ like Ino?"

"No," he growled, slamming his newly-emptied glass back onto the table with more force than required, "No, I do not. Because she spent the latter half of the day attempting to slowly destroy me in every way possible. So I do not like her. Though she is pretty. Very pretty." He tried to take another long swig and scowled when he realised his glass was empty, groping for a bottle that Temari had sneakily removed. "Nice legs," he muttered, offhand.

"Well," Temari said, still clasping the bottle behind her in what she hoped was a casual manner, though, on second thought, Kankuro was so sloshed by this point that she needn't try too hard, "That quite contradicts the information I have received."

Kankuro visibly stumbled over this idea for a moment before narrowing his eyes in woozy suspicion. "What are you talking about?"

"I've had reports," Temari said airily. Kankuro shot her a sharp look so she added, "Several people claim they saw you walking around with her, manhandling her and other such debauchery. Not to mention she's apparently wearing your clothes."

"Wassat got to do with anything?" Kankuro said, raising the glass to his lips again as if it might have filled itself and finding himself, predictably, disappointed.

Temari shrugged and tried not to enjoy herself too much. "Oh, nothing. It just suggests," she paused and pretended to fumble for the right words so that she could draw this out, "A certain level of… intimacy."

Her little brother's face seemed to freeze in a mask of drunken horror. In the silence, she could almost hear his brain working, albeit slowly. "You mean," he said after a pregnant pause, "People think I- that we- that she- me and her?"

"Her and I," Temari corrected, "And yes. Yes, they do. Like cats in heat."

"Oh my God," Kankuro's head descended back onto the table in a perfect copy of his original position, "Oh my God."

"I don't know why you're so upset," Temari said, glad that Kankuro couldn't see that grin that was currently making her cheeks ache, "You said yourself that she's very pretty."

Kankuro wailed.

"And it could be worse," she added, "At least, Ino didn't find out."

The kunoichi in question, despite her many faults, seemed to have near-perfect timing because she chose this moment to kick the door open so hard it slammed into the wall.

"I am going to kill you!"

Temari decided to be a good sister and leant over to fill Kankuro's glass again before hastily departing from the room. It took a week and a half before she managed to, as Kankuro so charmingly phrased it, "wipe that stupid goddamn smirk off her smug face".

Maybe "mutual schadenfreude" wasn't such a bad name for it after all.

* * *

Woo! I finally updated something! Sorry it took so long and please review - I love hearing from you guys. :D


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